Nintendo fanboys deserve to be praised. We fell in love with the company back in 80’s when they released the original NES. We supported them throughout the early 90’s when Sega’s Genesis came into the market. Most importantly, we stuck by them during the 3D era when the N64 and Gamecube both got the holy shit kicked of them by the PSone and PS2 respectively. But still we never lost hope, and after 10 years of being laughed at and ridiculed online and in school playgrounds, we have finally achieved victory. Every month our beloved Nintendo dominates both the hardware and software charts with the Wii, DS and ever-green titles like Wii Fit, Wii Play, Mario Kart Wii & Brain Age. So why is it that us die hard fans no longer care?.
April 2009 saw the release of March NPD figures which more or less proved that Nintendo’s hardcore fanbase has moved on. Both Sega’s Madworld for the Wii and Take 2’s GTA: Chinatown Wars for the DS drastically under-performed and failed to show up in the top 20 software charts. Both games received a shit-ton of hype and critical acclaim, (Chinatown Wars is currently the highest rated DS game ever according to Metacritic and had the marketing to match) but both games combined only managed to shift a measly 155,000 units in their first month of release. Putting this in prospective they sold less than what Officer Ricky sold in a week!.
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As disturbing as that sounds, it’s not the only worrying statistic to take in to consideration. Lets take a look at a few games which managed to outsell both Madworld and Chinatown Wars during the month of march. New Super Mario Bros on the DS which was released in 2006 and has already sold well over 10 million copies. Mario Kart DS, originally released way back in 2005! Take 2’s other release MLB 2K9 on the PS3 which had stiff competition from Sony’s own MLB: The Show, and Lego Star Wars on the Wii which was released in 2007 and is simply a double port of two PS2 games. This is clear evidence that the majority of Wii and DS owners don’t want mature, original content. The hardcore Nintendo fans who once begged their parents to buy them a NES for Christmas have become tired of Nintendo’s new focus on casual gaming and have moved on to the Xbox 360 and PS3 to fulfill their needs. Nintendo might be miles ahead of the competition in terms of sells, but in the eyes of every true gamer Nintendo is currently irrelevant.
The Conduit and Dead Space: Extraction are both set to be released this year and like almost every other M-Rated game on the Wii, they simply won’t sell. Soon after that, third-party developers will stop trying to be creative on Nintendo platforms and mercilessly bombard us with mini-game collections and Wii Sport clones and I wouldn’t blame them. So with E3 just a few weeks away what can Nintendo do to wow us hardcore gamers and capture back our hearts? Find out next week on The Demise of Nintendo pt. 2 right here on TheKoalition.com.
